Texas Supreme Court backlog reaches record level

Published 6:00 pm, Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Texas Supreme Court left a record number of cases pending at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, even as it agreed to hear more cases.

The court heard arguments but didn't rule in 111 cases during the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31. The backlog included 36 cases that were more than a year old and 13 others more than two years old, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The delay is drawing fire from at least one candidate for the Supreme Court.

"Texans don't need to be told they need to take a number and get in line and wait," said Jim Jordan, a Democrat challenging Republican Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson. "These kinds of delays create a distrust in the legal system."

Jordan, a Dallas trial judge, said parties that reach the Supreme Court have already spent considerable time and money in the legal process.

But Justice Paul Green, who wrote the fewest opinions during the fiscal year, defended the time he and others spend outside the office, speaking to groups and doing other appearances outside the court.

"If, all of a sudden, I said I'll just stay in my chambers and work on opinions, I don't think people would like that," Green told the newspaper Friday as he was driving to Corpus Christi to speak to a group of appellate lawyers.

Jefferson said he's worried about the backlog but denied it's because the justices aren't working hard.

The court issued rulings in a record number of cases last year, but it also accepted more for review and hasn't kept up. The court accepted an average of 150 cases per year over the last three years, compared to an average 114 from 1997 to 2004.

Jefferson has expressed frustration with delays in the writing of opinions by some justices, but he said that in a system where judges must run in partisan elections, justices must meet with the public and legal groups.

"If you elect judges, judges must interact with the voters and not just during an election year," he said.

Jefferson said he is urging justices to spend less time writing separate concurring and dissenting opinions, but those opinions are valued by lawyers looking for another review of their case.